"UPDATE (11/8): I had an outstanding question with Gigabyte on this, and a contact there has confirmed that the BIOS included on early versions of the board enabled only eight of the chip's pixel pipelines. The latest BIOS updates the board to have 12 active pipelines like a 6800 should have, and the mystery of the performance boost is solved!"
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=719

For some reason, the A1 revision of the cards have the BIOS from the 6800 LE thus turning the 6800 into an LE (which is slower because it only has 8 pixel pipelines and 4 vertex shaders enabled) rather normal 6800 spec (which is faster - 12 pixel pipelines and 5 vertex shaders enabled).

Basically, the cards sold seem to come with the BIOS Ver. F1, whereas you need to flash it (don't use windows flash utility - use DOS) to the F3 BIOS to get the spec right. Bit of an oversight on Gigabyte part I'd say....

4. If it says, “NV40 revision A1 (8x1,4vp)”, then you have the old BIOS installed which has wrong number of pipelines ( 8 ) and vertex shaders (4) enabled. They should be 12 (12x1) and 5 (5vp). The number of pipelines and vertex shaders can make a big difference to performance.

5. To enable the right number of pipelines and vertex shaders you need to install BIOS version F3 or alternatively, use RivaTuner to unlock the extra pipelines and vertex shaders.

6. BIOS flashing: Download BIOS version F3 from Gigabyte’s website. Ignore version F2 as this appears to have a bug that disables DVI support. Once the BIOS has been downloaded, follow Kevin’s instructions above, or those contained in the manual. The actual names of the file or flash command may vary slightly - I used: ''gvf13 -p r92128dh.f3'' It is not generally a good idea to use the Gigabyte Windows utility to flash the BIOS. Users have reported problems with the Windows BIOS flash utility: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=16746

8. Voila! You now have a “proper” 6800 with 12 pipelines (12x1) and 5 vertex shaders (5x1). You can experiment with 16 pipelines and 6 vertex shaders, but this resulted in artefacting (strange shapes appearing on screen). The Gigabyte cards overlcock pretty well, so you can experiment with this as well.

Comments about the card generally:

The difference between this and other 6800 cards is the passive heatsink which is smaller than I thought it would be (for example, smaller than the Zalman passive GPU heatsinks). The card runs hot - 60C to 80c - and the heatsinks are hot enough to burn you after about a second. Haven't noticed any problems running at high temperatures. The card is also quite slim - it doesn't take up PCI slot 1, so unless the top side of the card points outwards it will *probably* fit into a SFF / Shuttle type case (I haven't tried it).

On my system (3200+, 1gig, 6800) I find that the 6800 isn't quite powerful enough to play HL2 at 1280x1024 with max detail and 8AF/4AA - on some levels framErates drop to 16-25fps. I have to turn it down to 6AF/2AA to get framerates back to 40-50fps. If people want to play HL2 at max everything, it would be worth consider getting an ATI X800 Pro/XT type card coupled with a Zalman HS/modded 80mm fan (about £100 more expensive than the Gigabyte 6800 though).

TIP: If you want to a cool the card, a very simple yet effective solution is to install a Zalman fan bracket but orientate it the wrong way up and then attach 1 or 2 80mms fans to the middle of the bracket. Reduces temperatures by 30C-50C.

Last edited by davidstone28 on Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:45 am, edited 5 times in total.

This makes me angry... I have three linux gaming machines that I would like to have at least some decent 3D support on. I would like to buy ATI stuff, because they have so many models that run without fans (Saphre 9600 - best bang for the buck!), but their drivers for Linux are absolute garbage. Currently they have no drivers for xorg X11, nor do they have 64bit drivers! Nvidia has both! I would like to get Nvidia, but usually they are more expensive and they have no good fanless models! Argh!

I had a geforce4 ti4200 once, great card, but (needlessly...) noisy as crap, and eventually the fan died, and the card overheated, so I was out $120. I swore never to go with a fan-bearing card ever again.

I wish there was a happy medium. Nvidia, keep up the good work on the drivers but make some dang fanless models!!

I looked at gigabyte's site and they have a whole page devoted to their 'silent pipe' video cards. Only problem is that I can't find a single one of them for sale on-line.

I want to replace my gigabyte 6600 which is by far the loudest component in my system with a passively cooled version of the same card, but even though there's press releases galore and photos and specs for the card it just isn't there if you want to buy the damn thing. Anyone got any ideas?

Here's my experience with the 6800:
Bought it last week. It came with the F3 BIOS on it already. I have since unlocked it to 16 shaders and 6 vertex. Also overclocked it to 350 core, so I basically have a GT. It runs fine -- no artifacts, and temperatures (even after extensive doom3 and 3dmark05) stay around 55C... It idles right around 50C. I really couldn't be happier with it right now.

The price difference between the gigabyte 6600gt fan version and the turbo with heatpipe is (at least at one store i know) that the normal one comes with doom 3. The price of the normal one is higher there too.

EDIT: you were talking about the regular 6600, none of the cards at that store have heatpipes as far as i can tell. (only the turbo versions are heatpipes)

Well, I noticed that the OC'd 6800 Ultra from BFG was listed.
Here is my opinion on that:

1) It is not passively cooled (water cooling is active cooling).
2) If we are just making a list of vga cards that can be operated "fanless" then you can put a water block on any card for the most part.
3) Even then the water moves the heat to a radiator that needs a fan to cool it (except the Zalman Reserator).

I know it is an older card, but it has some 3D.
It is still handy to have fanless information about older cards, since one may
need to look for an older card (e.g. for compatability with older programs).
It is handy to know what card(s) to look for.

Hope something like the fanless list makes it into the recomended section.

I have been using Matrox P650 (AGP version) in two machines for some time now because it's passively cooled and offers two DVI sockets, all for a reasonable price.

They recently released the PCIe P650, so I ordered that for a new PCIe motherboard I was assembling. To add to the joy, I also ordered a PCI P650 - I wanted 4 x DVI in this machine (I'm making a system with 4 Hyundai L90D+ panels in pivoted mode - total desktop 4096 x 1280).

I was not happy to discover that the PCIe and PCI P650s are actively cooled - 40mm fan in a teeny heatsink (looks like an active northbridge cooler more than a VGA ).

I will be looking into replacing these heatsinks with passive ones - I just hope the current HSF isn't secured with thermal epoxy (BTW: any suggestions for removing thermal epoxy???)

I don't think this is completely correct. Many models (of all brands) with 128-bit DDR (128MB or 256MB RAM) have fans. I found out the hard way when I ordered the eVGA FX5200 128-bit card, because all photos I could find of the 128-bit model did not show a fan (including photos on eVGA's own website).

I ended up getting a Chaintech SH5200-128-DVI for my HTPC (fanless) and it runs great. I do agree that many FX5200 cards are fanless; you just have to be careful when you're shopping around that you're not just looking at a "reference photo".

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